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Background: The Sarcoma Policy Checklist was created by a multidisciplinary expert group to provide policymakers with priority areas to improve care for sarcoma patients.Main Body: This paper draws on this research, by looking more closely at how France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom are addressing each of these priority areas. It aims to highlight key gaps in research, policy and practice, as well as ongoing initiatives that may impact the future care of sarcoma patients in different European countries. A pragmatic review of the published and web-based literature was undertaken. Telephone interviews were conducted in each country with clinical and patient experts to substantiate findings. Research findings were discussed within the expert group and developed into five core policy recommendations. The five identified priority areas were: the development of designated and accredited centres of reference; more professional training; multidisciplinary care; greater incentives for research and innovation; and more rapid access to effective treatments. Most of the countries studied have ongoing initiatives addressing many of these priorities; however, many are in early stages of development, or require additional funding and resources.Conclusion: Gaps in access to quality care are particularly concerning in many of Europe's lower-resourced countries. Equitable access to information, clinical trials, innovative treatments and quality specialist care should be available to all sarcoma patients. Achieving this across Europe will require close collaboration between all stakeholders at both the national and European level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: To be able to provide high-quality palliative care, there need to be a number of organizational structures available in the nursing homes. It is unclear to what extent such structures are actually present in nursing homes in Europe. We aim to examine structural indicators for quality of palliative care in nursing homes in Europe and to evaluate the differences in terms of availability of and access to palliative care, infrastructure for residents and families, multidisciplinary meetings and quality improvement initiatives. Methods: A PACE cross-sectional study (2015) of nursing homes in Belgium, England, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands and Poland. Nursing homes (N = 322) were selected in each country via proportional stratified random sampling. Nursing home administrators (N = 305) filled in structured questionnaires on nursing home characteristics. Organization of palliative care was measured using 13 of the previously defined IMPACT structural indicators for quality of palliative care covering four domains: availability of and access to palliative care, infrastructure for residents and families, multidisciplinary meetings and quality improvement initiatives. We calculated structural indicator scores for each country and computed differences in indicator scores between the six countries. Pearson's Chi-square test was used to compute the p-value of each difference. Results: The availability of specialist palliative care teams in nursing homes was limited (6.1–48.7%). In Finland, Poland and Italy, specialist advice was also less often available (35.6–46.9%). Up to 49% of the nursing homes did not provide a dedicated contact person who maintained regular contact with the resident and relatives. The 24/7 availability of opioids for all nursing home residents was low in Poland (37.5%). Conclusions: This study found a large heterogeneity between countries in the organization of palliative care in nursing homes, although a common challenge is ensuring sufficient structural access to specialist palliative care services. Policymakers and health and palliative care organizations can use these structural indicators to identify areas for improvement in the organization of palliative care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Increasing the proportion diagnosed with and on treatment for chronic hepatitis C (CHC) is key to the elimination of hepatitis C in Europe. This study contributes to secondary prevention planning in the European Union/European Economic Area (EU/EEA) by estimating the number of CHC (anti-HCV positive and viraemic) cases among migrants living in the EU/EEA and born in endemic countries, defining the most affected migrant populations, and assessing whether country of birth prevalence is a reliable proxy for migrant prevalence.Methods: Migrant country of birth and population size extracted from statistical databases and anti-HCV prevalence in countries of birth and in EU/EEA countries derived from a systematic literature search were used to estimate caseload among and most affected migrants. Reliability of country of birth prevalence as a proxy for migrant prevalence was assessed via a systematic literature search.Results: Approximately 11% of the EU/EEA adult population is foreign-born, 79% of whom were born in endemic (anti-HCV prevalence ≥1%) countries. Anti-HCV/CHC prevalence in migrants from endemic countries residing in the EU/EEA is estimated at 2.3%/1.6%, corresponding to ~580,000 CHC infections or 14% of the CHC disease burden in the EU/EEA. The highest number of cases is found among migrants from Romania and Russia (50-60,000 cases each) and migrants from Italy, Morocco, Pakistan, Poland and Ukraine (25-35,000 cases each). Ten studies reporting prevalence in migrants in Europe were identified; in seven of these estimates, prevalence was comparable with the country of birth prevalence and in three estimates it was lower.Discussion: Migrants are disproportionately affected by CHC, account for a considerable number of CHC infections in EU/EEA countries, and are an important population for targeted case finding and treatment. Limited data suggest that country of birth prevalence can be used as a proxy for the prevalence in migrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]